


The Italian Ice Job

by Zoeleo



Series: Rara Avis [15]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Flirting, F/M, First Crush, Gen, Growing Up, Jealousy, Or Bruce adopts Jason but doesn't make him Robin, Summer, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-08 12:52:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19107469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoeleo/pseuds/Zoeleo
Summary: Alfred kicks Tim and Jason out of the house to enjoy the fresh air and exerciseor else. They take a stroll through Grant Park debating the finer points of the great Star Wars vs. Star Trek controversy until they come across a cafe and Jason runs into an old schoolmate.Tim is surly. Riley gets bitten. And Bruce is not ready to go through this again - Dick was bad enough when he first started noticinggirls.





	The Italian Ice Job

**Author's Note:**

> I know Italian Ice and gelato are two different things. But I could not abandon the awesome opportunity for this title. Enjoy!
> 
> Special thanks to [AmariT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmariT/pseuds/AmariT)  
> for beta-ing!

“Tim, I get it. Really. But you’re not going to change my mind on this. Star Wars wins, hands down.”

Tim stops dead in his tracks, jaw dropping in horror. Riley, following at a leisurely pace behind them almost trips over his heels. Jason rolls his eyes. Riley’s been all twitterpated ever since he got back with his ex, checking his phone every five seconds and huffing quietly with laughter like some pathetic lovesick puppy.

“How can you say that!?” Tim throws his hands in the air and waves them around as he speaks, like the more he moves them will help his argument. “The science in Star Trek is so much more innovative! Like, the technology in the show has been prototypical for so much of our modern technology. Star Wars just makes stuff up and they don’t even do it right! A parsec is a measure of distance not time. And for a lightsaber to work it would have to be made out of plasma and plasma wouldn’t cut neat like that, it’d vaporize the matter, which would cause an explosion. Just turning it on, the radiant heat would cause anything flammable nearby to ignite—”

Jason sighs and keeps walking. He pulls the hem of his shirt away from his body, peeling it off of sweat soaked skin. Gotham never does anything by halves. Winters cold enough to kill, summers hot enough to boil you alive. He would have preferred to spend the day splayed out under the AC playing video games, but Alfred had chased them out of the manor. There was something sinister in the way the butler suggested some exercise and fresh air would be “for their own good,” that had stifled any argument. Jason is fairly sure he was just sick of listening to them hoot and holler while slaughtering each other in Super Smash Brothers.

“Look, I get it. You’re a nerd. You like the science. But if I wanted to geek out over science I’d just watch Nova. Star Trek is ultimately a piece of fiction and when it comes down to good storytelling and dynamic characters, Star Wars is the clear winner.”

Tim scoffs.

“False! Star Trek is also way more innovative in its characters than Star Wars. Star Wars takes place in a galaxy populated exclusively by white people and Mace Windu, while Star Trek is way more diverse! You’ve got Sulu and Uhura and—”

“Whoaaaa, whoa.” Jason brings his arms up into a T, signaling a time-out. “Number one: how dare you forget Lando Calrissian? Number two: cast and character are two totally different things. Yeah, Uhura was freaking groundbreaking as a woman of color on screen… but 90% of the time she’s in the background staring at a bunch of blinking lights. Princess Leia was kicking ass as a main character 100% of the time. She’s a better character.”

Jason can practically feel the heat radiating off Tim as he seethes. Should he purposefully be riling the younger boy up like this? Probably not. But Tim’s gone from being his best friend to practically his brother, and if there’s one thing he’s learned from Dick—it’s a big brother’s sworn duty is to tease his little brother every now and then. And when Tim gets frustrated he starts to stammer and Jason thinks it’s hilariously adorable.

Tim raises a finger.

“One—one—one word, for—for you: Jar Jar Binks.”

Jason groans.

“Okay fine. Jar Jar Binks fuckin’ sucks. But I’d rather watch the whole two hour travesty of _Phantom Menace_ with his dumb ass than watch Patrick Stewart debate morality with a blob monster again. That is fifty minutes of my life I will never get back.”

It’s Tim’s turn to grimace.

“Okay, point. But every show has at least one episode like that, and Next Generation ran for like seven seasons so…”

Tim’s mouth keeps moving in defense of his tragically _wrong_ opinion, but Jason tunes him out, rubbing his belly absently. It growls. He frowns. They just ate a bunch of trail mix and plantain chips and other Alfred-approved snacks back at the manor.

He’s hungry _all_ the time. Before he came to the manor, hunger was a constant dull ache peppered with episodes of mouth-watering nausea and sharp pangs of desire. Now he has three square meals a day and access to food whenever he wants it and he’s _still_ hungry. Alfred says it has to do with his growth spurt. The almost ten inches he’s shot up since last year would seem to support that claim, but Jason’s not entirely convinced it isn’t a tapeworm.

“Hey.” He bumps Tim’s shoulder and nods to a café front with a green awning over the sidewalk. “Let’s grab something to eat.”

“Why? Are you hungry?” Tim asks, as if genuinely confused by the prospect.

He would be. Tim eats like a bird. He pecks at his lunch in the cafeteria. Half the time, Jason steals whatever he doesn’t finish off his tray. At first Jason thought maybe he didn’t like the cafeteria food (which is crazy, the food at Gotham Academy is _way_ better than the food at the public school he went to), but even when Tim sleeps over at the manor he never asks for seconds at dinner. Jason doesn’t understand it, but he’s come to accept it as another Tim-ism.

“Yeah, I could eat,” Jason answers vaguely.

“I didn’t bring my wallet.”

“No worries, I gotcha,” he offers, patting where the slim leather billfold sits in the inside pocket of his jacket.

He wonders what his mom would think, if she’d be happy if she could see him now. Happy that he can do something small like treat his best friend. Before she got sick, they’d walk through Grant Park a lot. It was free and guaranteed a few hours out from under Willis’s thumb. She’d save the change from her tips and buy them a small shave ice (coconut because Jason liked how it turned their tongues blue) from the Hawaiian ice cart in summer and get two spoons. It was a game, taking turns and seeing how long they could make it last. Somehow, Jason always ended up with the last bite though he was never able to catch how she rigged that.

Those were some of the best days he can remember. He wishes he had pictures of her like the ones Tim likes to take all the time. There are snapshots in his head: the tilt of her smile as she wiped sugar-water off his chin, the way the sun would catch in her hair making it as red as Poison Ivy’s, the freckles on her thumb, the little gap between her front teeth. But some days he can’t quite remember how all of those features fit together and it scares him. He’s afraid one day he’ll wake up and find he’s forgotten her face completely.

He clears his throat and shoulders through the café door. The tables are full of patrons but no one is standing in line at the moment. He shivers a bit at the abrupt temperature change. It’s downright chilly inside and he can’t help but grin when he realizes why. A glass case with rows of brightly colored dessert sits next to the counter. It’s not just a coffee shop, but a gelateria as well. He skips ahead and catches himself before doing something truly embarrassing like actually pressing his nose to the glass. He mouths the options silently as he reads over the available flavors.

He raises two fingers up in a peace sign. “Uh. I’ll have two scoops, please: the strawberries ’n cream, and nutella.” It’s practically Neapolitan. “Oh, and then whatever he wants is on me.” Jason jerks his thumb over his shoulder to indicate Tim.

“Jason?” a voice that is distinctly female and therefore neither his friend nor bodyguard asks.

He looks up and freezes. Hazel eyes crinkle up at the corners behind a soft sweep of auburn bangs, the rest of her long hair is tucked up into a hat with the café’s logo on it.

“Jason! Jason Todd, oh my god, it is you, isn’t it?” The teenage girl behind the counter beams at him. She has dimples. Jason’s throat goes dry. “You’ve gotten so much taller, I wasn’t sure it was you—but as soon as I saw your eyes I knew!”

“You remember me?” he squawks in surprise, fumbling as he tries to pull out his wallet.

“Yeah, we had homeroom together…”

The dimple disappears. Bringing it back suddenly becomes the sole most important thing on Jason’s mind.

“No!” he rushes to explain, “I mean yes! I mean, Rena!”

His voice cracks halfway through. Shit. Fuck. Shit-fuck. Shish kebab his balls and throw them on the grill, he _HATES_ puberty.

“Yeah, no. I totally remember you. I’m just surprised you remember _me_. You were like really popular. I didn’t know you knew I existed.”

“Popular?” Rena snorts. “It’s sweet you thought that I guess. But it’s not like I was a cheerleader or anything.”

“No. But you were always really nice and had a lot of friends and all the guys thought you were hot. Are hot. I mean—I—”

Oh, fuck. His face flames red, and what he wouldn’t give to be swallowed by a space blob right now.

“Everyone?” she asks, the dimple reappearing.

He’s saved from a truly humiliating case of unintelligible garbling by Tim pointedly clearing his throat. Jason clings to it like a lifeline, grabbing Tim by the shoulder and shoving him in front of him as a human shield.

“Sorry! Rena, this is Tim. Tim, this is Rena.”

Rena redirects her smile to the shorter boy and extends her hand over the counter.

“Hi! It’s nice to meet you.”

Tim shakes it with a tight-lipped smile. “Hi. I’m his best friend. I’d like an iced Americano, please.”

“Oh! Of course, yeah, your orders. Coming right up, just give me a second!” She gives her head a little shake before bouncing off towards the espresso machine.

“Don’t I get anything boss? A scoop or an introduction or anything?” Riley asks, looming over Jason’s shoulder.

“No,” he hisses and throws an elbow back into Riley’s gut, forcing him back a step. “And no. I know for a fact Bruce pays you like an obscene amount. You can buy your own damn gelato.”

Riley retaliates by putting Jason into a loose headlock and forcefully ruffling his hair. Jason angles his chin down and bites him.

“Ow! That was not nice!” Riley yelps and jumps back to a safe distance, shaking his arm.

“Uhhh...” Rena waits with bewildered amusement at the counter with Tim’s Americano in one hand, and Jason’s ice cream in the other.

Jason frantically finger-combs his hair back down. Tim rolls his eyes and takes his coffee to go slouch in a corner and scroll through his phone.

“That will be $11.98.”

Jason hands her a twenty from his billfold and accepts the gelato.

“You can keep the change, for the hassle,” he mutters and blushes.

Riley grins toothily and leans forward to give her a hearty handshake. “Hey, I’m Riley. Can I have a single scoop? Pistachio, please?”

“Yeah. One sec.” She sweeps over to the case and back. “That’ll be $4.27.”

Riley makes a show of thumbing through his wallet and frowning. “You don’t happen to have a discount for bodyguards do you?”

Jason groans. “Ignore him. He’s an idiot.”

Rena blinks and recovers with a grace Jason envies.

“Oh! Bodyguard. Yeah, no, that makes sense considering who your dad is. No. But we do have a friends and family discount. And you’re kind of a friend of a friend I guess.” She winks at Jason and his knees go shaky like when coach has been making them do grapevines all afternoon.

Riley pokes him in the back with a spoon.

“Uhh, well. I guess, we should get goin’? Instead of botherin’ you at work all day.”

Rena laughs, and it’s a pretty tinkly sound that makes him smile like a dumbass.

“It was good seeing you again Jason. Hope you have a nice afternoon. If you ever feel like ‘bothering’ me again, I work here all through the summer.”

“Oh. Yeah. I’ll be back. I love—” He glances down at the melting contents of the cup in his hands. “—gelato.”

Riley snickers and Tim slinks up to pull him away by his sleeve towards the door. Jason cranes his neck over his shoulder to watch as Rena takes another customer’s order  and trips over the weather-strip at the threshold.

“Okay, okay. We’re going. Geez, Tim. What are you in such a rush for?”

Tim tosses his empty paper cup into a trash bin on the sidewalk.

“I want to feed the ducks at the pond. Not watch you making eyes at some girl all day.”

“I—I wasn’t _making eyes at some girl!_ ” Jason protests, “Like, what does that even mean?”

Tim turns to him with wide limpid eyes and bats his lashes. Jason spreads his palm over his face and pushes him away.

“I was _not_ doing that! And she’s not some girl, her name is Rena. We used to go to school together, that’s all. We’re barely even friends. It’s not like that… _It’s not._ ”

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Later that week…_

 

“Hey, Dad?”

Bruce looks up from the Forbes issue he’s reading. “Yeah, Jaylad?”

Jason closes the book in his lap, keeping his place with a finger between the pages. They’re camped out in the library. Tim’s parents are actually home and Alfred is cleaning up after dinner so it’s just the two of them.

“I’ve been thinking about getting a job.”

Bruce sets the magazine down. “A… job?”

“Yeah, like a summer job.”

“Jason, you’re still in school. Your education is your job right now.”

Jason rolls his eyes, “I _know_ that. No, I mean like a summer job as in a job just for the summer...” Bruce stares at him. “They’re kind of a thing regular teenagers do?”  

“Okay. And… what do you want a _summer_ job for? You have an allowance. Do you need money for something?”

“No! I just...”

How he is he supposed to explain this to a billionaire?

“Like, for the experience. I’ve already finished my summer reading. And except for practice and volunteering at the shelter I don’t really have any time obligations. Some of my friends have jobs, and I thought it would be… like a good way to learn responsibility and start building my resume or whatever.”

He tries his best to recreate up the puppy-dog eyes Tim pulls off so well.

Bruce leans back in his armchair. “You know, that’s a really good idea, Jay. I’m surprised, but I’m really proud of you. That’s a very mature thing to pursue. I can get an internship set up for you at WE, I’m sure Lucius or Regina would love to take you on for the summer—”

Jason winces. “Actually… I kind of already had something else in mind.”

Bruce comes to a halt. “Oh? What do you have in mind?”

“Well, there’s this gelato place by Grant Park?”

“You…” His father narrows his eyes at him like he’s a particularly perplexing puzzle. “Just for confirmation, you’re saying you want to work at a gelato place instead of WE?”

“ _Welllll_ ,” Jason drawls the first word out uncomfortably long, the rest following in a rush, “See, my friend Rena works there. I know her from school. Well, not Gotham Academy, but the school I was at before, and her dad owns the place. And it gets really busy in the summer and she said they could use the help and that if I applied she’d put in a good word for me and… Please?”

“Ah,” Bruce says, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I see.”  

Jason leans forward, crossing his fingers where his hands are balled up under his legs out of sight.

“I… I guess. You can. Work at the... _gelato_ place. With your… _friend._ Rena.” Bruce slowly caves, pulling his hand away from his face.

“Yes!” Jason jumps up with a shout and a triumphant grin.

He runs over to his dad and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” Bruce grumbles and rubs at his cheek.

Jason isn’t sure why his dad is being so weird about the whole thing, but Bruce said yes so he doesn’t care too much. He turns to race into the kitchen and give Alfie the good news and ignores the sound of a long-suffering sigh behind him.

  



End file.
